Hard Man Hart

Hart. Wikipedia

 Henry Chichester Hart (1847-1908) was born in Dublin, the son of Sir Andrew Searle Hart (Professor of Mathematics and Vice-Provost of Trinity College).  The family roots were in Donegal and he was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen and Trinity College, Dublin.  During his college years he was a noted athlete, a powerful swimmer and champion walker.  At Trinity he was  awarded a moderatorship in natural and experimental science and graduated (1869) with a BA (hon.). In 1871 he was awarded a diploma in civil engineering.

From the age of 17, Hart conducted a botanical survey of Donegal (lasting until 1898), which led to his publication Flora of the County Donegal, widely regarded as his most important botanical work.  He was a friend of Richard Barrington and together they contributed to the 1898 edition of A.G. More's Cybele Hibernica.  Of all the botanical explorers whom  More enlisted in the preparation of the second edition of Cybele Hibernica, Hart was the most active, searching mountain-ranges, rivers, lakes, islands, and coasts in order to determine the distribution of rare flowering plants.

In 1875-6. he served as naturalist in the Arctic expedition under Sir George Nares on board H.M.S. Discovery.  Hart's farthest North was c. 86° 50'. He collected :flowering plants and ferns at various points, from Disco Island onward, but his most important work was done in the NE. part of Grinnell Land between 80° and 81 ° 50' N. (See Nares, 'Voyage to the Polar Sea',)

In 1883-4 he was with the Scientific Expedition to Sinai and Palestine (supported by the Royal Irish Academy ) and while there climbed a number of mountains, including Jebel Katerina (2642m).

In his own country he was an indefatigable walker and from his own experience he contributed the section on Ireland in Haskett-Smith's 'Climbing in the British Isles' (1895).  He was accepted for membership of the Alpine Club in 1889 (proposed by John Ball, seconded by F.J. Cullinan, two Irishmen), his qualifications being scientific - his publications on mountain botany.  In that same year he made, it seems, his only climbing visit to the Alps, when he ascended the Weisshorn and Dent Blanche with Barrington and guide Christian Almer.  

Earlier (1887) he had carried out some groundbreaking climbing on Skye - traversed the Inaccessible Pinnacle, and made the 1st traverse of Sgurr Mic Choinnich and ascended Sgurr Alasdair in a single day.(see Irish Mountain Log ....).

Hart Walk times. J. Lynam.(IMEHS Journal)

He is commemorated today by the 'Hart Walk'.  This originated in a wager, for fifty guineas, in 1886 between himself and Barrington - that he couldn't walk from Terenure to Lugnaquilla's summit and back again in less than 24 hours.  This is a distance, according to Hart, of 75 miles; he completed the journey in 23hours and 50 minutes and so won the wager.

The repetition of this walk has become a 'test piece' for modern-day hikers and Joss Lynam has produced a table of times achieved up to the mid 1970s. (IMEHS Journal Vol 1).

That Hart was a 'hard man' is of little doubt and is exemplified by the tale that shows his indifference to weather conditions. He and Barrington were botanising on a pouring wet day near Powerscourt in Wicklow.  They ended up, testing each other, by sitting on a submerged stone in the river, nonchalantly eating their lunches, indifferent to the conditions.

He died in 1908 and is buried at Glenalla, Donegal, amidst the wild glens and valleys where he had spent the happiest days of his life.

See Frank Nugent, In search of peaks, passes & glaciers for more detail.

The Cullinans

 Maxwell Cormac and Frederick Fitzjames Cullinan were born in Ennis, Co Clare.  The Alpine Club states that they were brothers - sons of Dr. Patrick Maxwell Cullinan, of Harmony House, Ennis.  By another source they may have been cousins. [At the time of Griffith’s Valuation Dr P.M. Cullinan held land in the parish of Kilchreest, barony of Clonderalaw, while Michael Cullinan held six townlands in the parish of Feakle, barony of Tulla Upper. He is recorded as owning 966 acres in the 1870s. His son Frederick FitzJames Cullinan was knighted in 1897.  Landed Estates. UCG].

Maxwell, the elder, (born 1843) had a stellar academic career - Trinity College, Dublin; Christ's College, Cambridge - Fellow, Lecturer, Junior Dean and Classical Lecturer.  Called to the Bar 1869, Assistant Professor of Latin at University College London, contributed to a number of volumes on historical and classical subjects.

His Alpine career was relatively short ( AC member 1875 - 80) during which he made some impressive ascents: Adler Pass and Strahlhorn, Schwartzberg Weisstor, Rothorn, Matterhorn were his qualifying ascents.  He lived abroad after 1878 and died in Rome in 1884.

Frederick. born in 1845, was educated at Ennis College and Dublin University but became a Civil Servant in Dublin Castle at age 19.  He moved to the higher echelons of the service in London and later again in Dublin where he also became a governor of the National Gallery.  His time in London allowed him to become very active in the Alpine Club (1878-83) and he visited the Alps a number of times, making some significant ascents, often with Gerald Fitzgerald.  His last recorded climbs in the Alps were in 1885.

Alpine Club

Back in Dublin he continued his mountain activities. It is likely that he visited Wales where he planned to build a house among the mountains he loved.

Created CB in 1894, knighted in 1897 and KCB in 1913.

He accompanied Henry Hart on the 'Hart Walk' to win the wager with Richard Barrington (1886).  He remained a member of the Alpine Club and attended its dinner for members resident in Ireland in 1906 that took place at the University Club in honour of its ex-president James Bryce.

He died in 1913 and his obituary was written by his climbing partner Gerald Fitzgerald, who said: He was naturally of a very retiring disposition, but for those whom he knew intimately he had many and great attractions : he was a good climber, fast, light and safe, and always a most eventempered, unselfish, and agreeable companion. (Alpine Journal 1914 pp 194)

One might ask what was the stimulus that sparked their first interest in climbing mountains.

See Frank Nugent's In search of Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers for further details of both.

Another Barrington, Richard

Courtesy:
F Nugent & Barrington family

 Richard Manliffe Barrington was half-brother to Charles, and was the only son of their father's second wife (Huldah Strangman). Born in 1849 at Fassaroe, Barrington was a delicate youngster, with a keen interest in natural science. He was educated mainly at home, with the exception of one year at a day-school in Bray. He entered TCD (1866), graduating with honours (1870) in experimental and natural science.

 In 1875 he was called to the bar, but soon found the life of a land valuer and farmer more to his liking. After the death of his father (1877) he became more involved with the management of the farm at Fassaroe. 

Growing up, he spent many weeks every summer on the islands, mountains and lakes of the south and west of Ireland gathering notes on plants and birds. Along with another Trinity educated mountaineer, Henry Chichester Hart, he contributed to Alexander Goodman More's 1872 publication, Cybele Hibernica.

On a visit to London in that year (1872) he attended a lecture in the Royal Institution given by John Tyndall and on his return went on a hillwalking holiday in Killarney where they went to the Gap of Dunloe, climbed Carrantuohill (with a local guide) and Mangerton, got a little lost in the fog on Mount Brandon, climbed Eagle Mountain and hiked around the area before returning to Dublin by train.

1876 saw his first Alpine sojourn, when he repeated his half-brother's ascent of the Eiger and it was by his encouragement that Charles wrote an account for the Alpine Club of his own ascent, confirming that it was, in fact, the first ascent of that summit.

His interest in botany and ornithology continued and he visited the western islands of Ireland and Scotland, Lough Erne and Ben Bulben, and visited Iceland in 1881, hiking extensively there and climbing Mt Hekla. Reports on the flora and fauna of such places were written and many published.  On one such visit (in 1883) to the Outer Hebrides he undertook what became an 'epic' climb on one of the sea stacks (Stack na Biorrach) and published an account in the Alpine Journal (May 1913. No 200).

Stack na Biorrach

  He wanted to compare the climbing abilities of the locals (who climbed to collect eggs and fowl) to that of the Alpine guides. This was soon after he had completed a spectacular season in the Alps (1882) when   the Schreckhorn, Finsteraarhorn, Eggishorn, Jungfrau and Matterhorn were climbed     -         a total ascent of at least 84,500 feet in ten days.

Henry Swanzy was a clergyman friend and together they attended the annual meeting of the British Association in Manitoba, Canada in 1884.  Afterwards they continued westwards through the Selkirk and Rocky Mountains on a gruelling journey through largely unexplored territory to reach the west coast, returning via Portland, Oregon and Chicago.  Swanzy's report of the mountains traversed was an influencing factor in the later explorations of his cousin William Spottswood Green.

It was Green who was his proposer for Alpine Club membership in 1886 and in 1889 he returned to the Alps with H.C Hart, climbing the Weisshorn and Dent Blanche.  This seems to have been his last Alpine season.  He died in 1915 leaving his natural history collection to the Science and Art Museum, Kildare St., Dublin.

Biorrach 
Marc Calhoun

See  here for details of his life;

and In Search of Peaks, Passes and Glaciers, by Frank Nugent for more details of his Alpine career.

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